I AM: A Journey in Jewish Faith is a spiritual/theological meditation on the Shema, the biblical statement of God's oneness that rests in the heart of the Jewish people. Through poetry and prose, Rabbi Eron uses the words of the Shema–"Listen carefully all you people of Israel, the Eternal is our God, the Eternal alone!"–and the three biblical passages that follow it in the Jewish worship service to explore and express a contemporary unders ...
Echoes of Contempt is an engaging and vivid account of the tragic history of the church's relationship with Jewish communities over two millennia. Beginning with the Jerusalem house church, the book traces that history through medieval pogroms and the Parisian salons of the Enlightenment, right up to the present-day focus on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Drawing on a wide range of sources and his own extensive knowledge, ...
At the beginning of the Common Era, Jewish renewal movements, including Jesus' ministry, had similar views: embracing moderate ascetic behavior. Over the next three centuries, however, they moved in opposite directions. Christianity came to firmly privilege anti-pleasure views and female lifelong virginity while the Babylonian Talmud strongly embraced positive views on bodily pleasures and female sexuality. The books most distinguishing f ...
She's more than 3,000 years old. Her grandfather was the patriarch Jacob. She's mentioned by name three times in the Hebrew Bible, but there are no stories told about her. She knew Moses and David, Spinoza and Einstein–and now, at long last, Serach bat Asher has written her autobiography. "I was born in a tent," Serach tells us, a woman long silenced by history. She is feisty, funny, and bitter. The stories she tells abou ...
The dominant portrayals of the apostle Paul are of a figure who no longer valued Jewish identity and behavior, opposing them for both Jew and non-Jew in his assemblies. This prevailing version of Paul depends heavily upon certain interpretations of key «flashpoint» passages. In this book and the subsequent volumes in this series, Mark Nanos undertakes to test a «Paul within Judaism» (re)reading of the apostle, especially of these «flashpoint» te ...
Longing is a universal human experience, born of the inevitable gulf between dream and reality, what we need and what we have. While the experience of longing may arise from loss or the awareness of a void in one's life, it may also become a powerful engine of spiritual growth, prompting one to draw closer to the hidden yet present «Other.» Across the range of Jewish teachings, longing takes center stage in one's spiritual life. From ...
Should Genesis rightly be identified as law–that is, as torah or legal instruction for Israel? Peterson argues in the affirmative, concluding that Genesis serves a greater function than merely offering a prehistory or backstory for the people of Israel. As the introductory book to the Torah, Genesis must first and foremost be read as legal instruction for Israel. And how exactly is that instruction presented? Peterson posits that many of the Gen ...
The Jewish study of Jesus has made enormous strides within the last two hundred years. Virtually every aspect of the life of Jesus and related themes have been analyzed and discussed. Jesus has been «reclaimed» as a fellow Jew by many, although what this actually means remains a matter for discussion. Ironically, the one event in the life of Jesus that has received significantly less attention is the one that the New Testament proclaims as the m ...
Finding Our Voice is a series of meditations on how to express the deepest sense of who we are in a troubled world. What is the core of our being? How do we find the language to name that core? If the core of our faith is identifying and embodying the prophetic for our time, surviving that naming is as challenging as finding our voice. Often as not, the prophetic lands us in hot water. We feel alone and abandoned. Recognizing others in the same ...
